In his Moscow debut, Hikaru Nakamura was a few moves away from a tie for
first place at the 5th Tal Memorial tournament. A seven hour marathon
game with Alexander Grischuk in the last round ended in a draw that left
Hikaru a half point behind co-winners Levon Aronian, Sergei Karjakin
and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (who came third on tiebreaks). Not bad for a
round-robin tournament with an average rating of 2757, but it could have
been oh so much better.

In this position, Nakamura played 84...Qf3? And after 85.Nxe5 Bxe5
86.Qxe5 Qh1+ 87.Kg4, he intended to play h5+ which would win easily but
for the fact that it's not safe! White can just take it with his queen!
This kind of mistake in the clutch can happen to anyone -- both players
were under two minutes, with a 30 second increment -- and the extra half
point was worth over $17,000 -- but it's an especially tragic way to
end an otherwise successful tournament.

By Nakamura's account, this wasn't the first time he blew the win in
this game, but perhaps the second or third. Mamedyarov, the presumptive
winner, who took a half point lead into the last round surprisingly lost
to Boris Gelfand, encouraging Nakamura to start pressing in his game.

After outplaying Grischuk at the end of the first time control, Nakamura said, his 41..."h6 was terrible."

"I
forgot that after [42.]Rg6 I can't play Qa1 because [43.]Nxe5 Rxf2
[44.]Rxg7 Kg7 [45.Qg6 h6 is just a repetition and forced draw." It's
probably still winning after Qb4, but it's complicated."

Later, allowing 48.Qb1 "which is quite strong", Nakamura said, was a
blunder, and he only felt he regained good winning changes again after
Grischuk traded rooks on f8.

The resulting endgame was still no
cakewalk, but it remained solidly winning until Nakamura's mental lapse
on move 84. He makes no bones about it, telling me minutes after the
handshake just outside the playing hall, that "to just blunder like
that, deep in the third time control is just inexcusable." You can view the final minutes of the game below.

The failure to convert was no less disappointing, coming as it did
after six hours and fifty five minutes of play. In an ironic coincidence, the warning bell signaling the closure of the whole G.U.M. complex began to toll, just before Hikaru resigned himself to giving a perpetual check. Grischuk is Russia's
number two player, but there were echos of Nakamura's draw with Russia's
best, Vladimir Kramnik in round four. Both games, which could have gone
Nakamura's way, earned the respect of the Russian crowd in attendance,
as well as his fellow competitors.

"I'm enjoying playing against him because you can be absolutely sure
there will be a big fight," said Kramnik after their game. He notices
Nakamura slowly but surely improving and added "I think that he really
belongs to the Top Ten at the moment, only that he is not incredibly
stable yet," citing Nakamura's occasional habit of losing 20 rating
points in a single tournament. Nakamura is well aware
of this past, and is likely to be more selective about his tournament
commitments in 2011 in an effort to protect his nearly 2750 FIDE rating.

But Kramnik also observed that Nakamura is playing more solidly than
ever, citing his draws with Veselin Topalov in the Olympiad and with
Mamedyarov in the first round in Moscow as examples.

For his
part, co-winner Shakhriyar Mamedyarov also took note of Hikaru's new
approach, remarking that it was the first time he had personally seen
Nakamura play "serious openings" which, Mamedyarov thinks, helped him to
play well. "I think he can be, in [the] future, maybe World Champion --
why not," he volunteered, not in answer to a question on the subject.

Nakamura, who was unfortunate enough to have five blacks in this
event, can still count his Tal performance a success. He finished shared
fourth, ahead of the likes of Kramnik, Shirov, Gelfand, and Eljanov,
and added 7.2 precious rating points, according to the unofficial, but
closely followed Live Ratings.

As for Grischuk, Nakamura will have a chance to score the full point
quite soon in the annual Tal Memorial Blitz tournament (considered the
World Championship of blitz). Hikaru, never one to hide his natural
bravado, threw down the gauntlet on Twitter late last night when he
wrote, "I am going to destroy Grischuk like a baby in the blitz."